The present invention relates to an apparatus for feeding belted ammunition to an automatic firearm by means of starwheels which are arranged in front of the weapon on a starwheel shaft. The weapon generally also has an integrated belt feeder, and the starwheels are used to pull the belt out of a magazine. To this end, they have to exert forces of variable magnitude, accelerate quickly from rest, and must not be driven at a fixed speed, in order to avoid necessitating synchronization with the weapon.
For this reason, powerful external drives with a complex control system are normal for heavy automatic firearms. According to DE 20 11 236 C2, torque measurement and a controllable coupling are required for this purpose. Apart from the space requirement, susceptibility to defects is critical in a combat vehicle.